The Role of Relationships in Primary Years

Promoting social and emotional development requires a comprehensive approach that includes building positive relationships with children. Through trusting relationships with adults, children learn about their world and their place in it. Trusting relationships also teach children that the world is safe and responsive to their needs. Additionally, they learn to form satisfying relationships with others, to communicate, to face challenges, and to experience and regulate their emotions. Supporting a child’s healthy social and emotional growth takes commitment from all the primary caregivers in the child’s life. This includes mothers, fathers, grandparents, teachers, and other key adults in the child’s life. It’s important to remember that children in the primary years observe our relationships. What they observe shapes their expectations of how people treat each other and, therefore, influences their developing social skills and emotional competence.